Sunday, July 22, 2018

My neighbor Ellen, commissioned me to do paintings of her two fur babies.

I was happy when she loved this painting. She felt I captured his spirit well.

In some ways, it is more difficult to paint a pet, because the owner is so hyper aware of every little aspect of their beloved animal. This little guy had hair that stood up straight on top of his head, and super long eyelashes. The owner looked for that in the portrait, as well as all the color variations of the animal. She pronounced it a good likeness.....whew!

Sunday, July 15, 2018

Today, I am repeating a post, from a few years ago. I think it is worthy of your attention, again. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, my friends Carmen and Donna and I drove to Fernandina Beach, FL to attend a 4 day workshop with Elio Camacho. Elio is one of my favorite painters and my very favorite instructor and I have been lucky enough to attend with workshops twice a year for the past three years.

I started each day with this beautiful sunrise over the ocean, while eating breakfast at the hotel.

This is one of Elio's 36x48" demos that he paints in just three hours!

Here Elio met a challenge to paint without darks. He often states a painting should bring it's own light. I think this one meets that requirement

Another of his larger than life paintings.

This was a 25 minute demo he did for us on foam core. He pushed the color even more than usual and got wild and crazy.

His brushwork is very exciting...something I am hoping to bring to my work.

Elio spent a year painting blue studies, then moved on and studied yellows and reds. He likes to set up still life, to challenge his students, all in a single color. He believes red is the most difficult color to paint. If you can do a red painting, you can really see color. This was a 20 minute demo he did for us.

We hated to leave the workshop after 3.5 intense and fun days. To console ourselves, we had a final lunch of fried shrimp at our favorite eatery.

A final photo of Carmen and Donna, de-stressing with ice cream in front of Island Art Association. We thank the members for hosting us once again. Then we hop into our car for the drive home.

One last classic Elio demo that he painted in about 15 minutes, out of his head. I almost cried when he scrapped it off the next morning.

Needless to say, we are excited to return for his next Florida workshop in the spring. You can find his workshop schedule here.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

I have been trying to expand my horizons by painting new subject matter. This is my second horse painting.

SOLD

I have to say I did enjoy the challenge. He looked so spirited and I got excited about his red coat against a green background.

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It's always fun to stretch a little, try something new. I would like to do more of these, but I think my biggest challenge will be getting interesting reference images to work from. We have plenty of horses in our neighborhood, but they usually run to the other end of the pasture when they see me approach with my trusty camera.